Friday, September 6, 2013

Casual Friday: Late Victorian Travel Films

Friday, September 6, 2013
Courtesy Library of Congress
Loretta reports:

Some early travel films, set to rather sad music.  Yes, as some of the YouTube comments point out, everyone in these films is dead.  However, those people were very much alive when they were being filmed.  So you might wish to choose your own music to accompany it—and have fun, as I did, trying to guess the locales.  I was delightfully surprised to see early film footage of a locale featured in Mr. Impossible.







6 comments:

Karen Anne said...

Guess at order: France, Britain, Venice, Egypt starts at about 4:30? The end of the footage seems to be taken from a train -trains seem to have come to Egypt in 1854. Or I may be entirely wrong:-)

Scrapiana said...

Was Brighton in there? Thought it could have been the pier there, viewed from a small boat. I really loved the giant ric-rac on the suit of one of those London ladies.

ZipZip said...

Enjoyed that, and actually felt the music was peaceful, rather than sad. Very Septemberish and nostalgic.

Thought I saw Brighton, too, and wonder if a scene was shot in Turkey, as well as Egypt.

The people on the donkeys, each with a boy driving the animal, was interesting.

Noticed many women in Europe wearing shirtwaists, without jackets over them. All working women, or could non-working women also go out without a coat or wrap?

Very best,

Natalie

Sharon said...

Loved it! Though they might not have been at any of the locations filmed, this was everyday life when my grandparents were in elementary school.
Loved the Eric Satie music. I just would have chosen a different recording.

Unknown said...

Lovely film! So much material there for further research.

The fashion books tell us that this period was the time of the wasp waist. I've looked through the clips and most women seem to be very comfortable and not at all tight laced. Or were all the women working class?

Betty

Katherine K said...

Thank you! It's fascinating to see the relative density of pedestrians to vehicles (or donkeys) on the streets and the motion. For some reason, I get a kick out of omnibuses and loved watching the jerk and sway of those that passed in these clips.

 
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